There is growing desire to provide a greater military force using fewer military resources. Similarly, there is a desire to provide a maximum effect with limited force, a desire to fight in a non-linear fashion, (i.e., amount of force is not necessarily proportional to extent of enemy), a desire to influence a larger battlespace than is now possible, and a desire to be ready to fight in less time.
All of the above desires can be influenced by providing greater interoperability within and among the various branches of the U.S. military, including, but not limited to, the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. The desires can be further influenced by providing greater interoperability not only within and among the various branches of the U.S. military, but also between the branches of the U.S. military and foreign national forces.
Interoperability within the various branches of the U.S. military has been addressed with various directives provided by the military branches, including, but not limited to, “The Army in 2020,” a directive provided by the United States Army, “Sea Power 21,” a directive provided by the United States Navy, “Operational Maneuver From the Sea,” a directive provided by the United States Marines, and “Air Force Vision 2020” a directive provided by the United States Air Force. Interoperability between the various United States military branches has been addressed with other directives, for example, “Transformation Planning Guidance,” a directive provided by the Department of Defense. Interoperability between the U.S. military branches and other national forces has been addressed by still other directives, for example, “Joint Vision 2020,” a directive also provided by the Department of Defense.
As is known, in general, military operations can be described as having command, control, communications, and information (C3I) functions. Command and control (C2) functions are associated with military assets or weapons systems. For example, a communication can be made via a communications element (e.g., a radio) to a C2 function (e.g., an aircraft pilot) adapted to receive the communication about an enemy target (e.g., from a satellite report), whereupon, the C2 function can command a platform element (e.g., an aircraft), to attack the enemy target. Such an arrangement provides a “stovepiped” structure, wherein military systems are controlled by the C2 function (e.g., a pilot) associated with each military system. The stovepiped structure limits interoperability.
Interoperability between and among the branches of the U.S. military as well as between the branches of the U.S. military and foreign national forces has been limited not only by the stovepiped communications structure, but also by a plethora of communication formats used among military systems, military branches, and foreign national forces. The U.S. military has attempted to address the large number of communication formats with a concept for a Joint Distribution Network (JDN), which still retains the great number of communication formats, but which can provide limited interoperability.
In order to establish a generally common communication format (a C part of the C3I structure described above), the U.S. military has generated a concept for a Global Information Grid (GIG), in which military systems, e.g., aircraft and ships, can communicate among the systems using a common digital data packet structure on a network. The GIG concept provides communications that flow only through the command and control functions in the military systems, which has a System of Systems or “SOS” orientation. This realizes interoperability primarily through message-based interchange. For example, the GIG can provide a structure for communication (C) to an aircraft pilot (C2), who, based upon the communication, makes a decision to target an enemy location and to fire a missile. The GIG is merely a communications and information dissemination infrastructure, without regard to content of information that is communicated. The GIG is an operationally stovepiped arrangement as described above.
In order to provide the information (I) portion of the C3I structure, the U.S. Air Force has developed a concept for a Joint Battlespace Infosphere (JBI). The JBI can, for example, receive target and weather information from military systems and can make the information available to other military systems. In effect, the JBI provides an information repository available to military systems, e.g., aircraft. The JBI concept is gaining acceptance in other U.S. military service branches, but is not fully integrated into the GIG.
The U.S. military has not formulated a formal concept for integration of the GIG with the JBI. Furthermore, the U.S. military has provided only the stovepiped communication arrangement described above, requiring communications to flow through C2 functions within each military system. Therefore, the military has not provided a concept for a fully integrated and interoperable structure, and therefore, has not fully achieved its desire for a greater military force using fewer military resources. Also, by not eliminating some human interfaces, for example, as described above in conjunction with description of the GIG, a military response suffers some delays.
Referring now to FIG. 1, a prior art architecture 10 includes systems 12-20, each adapted to communicate on the Global Information Grid (GIG) 24 described above. Each system can be, for example, a war-fighting system such as a ship or an airplane. Each system communicates by way of a communications “element” within a respective system. A communications element can be, for example, a radio. The system 12 communicates via a communications element, E1, the system 14 communicates via a communications element, E11, the system 16 communicates via a communications element, E13, the system 18 communicates via a communications element, E16, and the system 20 communicates via communications elements, E5 and E7. A system 22 is unable to communicate on the GIG 24, for example, because it has a communications element, E19, or a communications format, which is not compatible with the GIG 24. However, the system 22 may be intentionally isolated.
The joint battlespace infosphere (JBI) 26 is also coupled to the GIG and can provide a variety of types of data to any system coupled to the GIG 24 that requests or requires the data. For example, the data in the JBI 26 can include weather data, battle damage assessment data, enemy troop and enemy equipment locations, and friendly troop and friendly equipment locations. The system 22 is unable to access the JBI 26 because the system 22 is not able to communicate on the GIG 24. The system 22 may have its own self-contained data that may or may not be consistent with data in the JBI 26 at any instant of time.
Taking the system 12 as representative of others of the systems 14-20, the stovepipe arrangement will be apparent. Information is received by the communications element, E1, from the GIG 24, wherein the information is passed to the command and control element, E2. The command and control element provides instructions that are distributed to the other elements E3, E4 (elements that touch are indicative of information transfer). Therefore, all of the information must come through the C2 element, E2, resulting in the stovepipe arrangement. Other elements, E3, E4 can be, for example, weapons or sensor elements. An element can also be representative of the platform itself, for example an airplane.
Logistics is a military function generally provided apart from actual war-fighting functions described in examples above. Logistics generally requires a substantial human interface, for example, to generate a contract to purchase missiles. However, it will be understood that the logistics function is related to the war-fighting functions. For example, if a large number of a particular type of missile is being used in combat by an air squadron, the planning function must order more missiles from a military contractor, and the logistics function must deliver more of the missiles to the air squadron. Current logistics functions are generally inefficient, dedicated by service branch, and are data and information starved, which can lead to material and personnel shortages.